13. Joy DivisionUnknown Pleasures
And, finally, number 13 goes to… Joy Division! After discovering Kraftwerk it was very difficult to go back and listen to guitar, drum and bass rock music again, but we were still young and curious and absorbed music like sponges. Punk happened in the second half of the ’70s and, with a little help from Margaret Thatcher, it created an explosion in the independent music scene and one of the most liberating moments in cultural history. I think we can easily say that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War was a direct result of the social and political changes provoked by punk and new wave. Everybody was listening to the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Dead Kennedys and all other punk groups we could get hold of at the end of the 1970s, but also The Stranglers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Iggy and The Stooges, Patti Smith, Bauhaus, The Pop Group, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle… This was all very uplifting and inspiring music, but then Joy Division released Unknown Pleasures, and things started getting serious again. This album was a cornerstone of the ’80s and Joy Division were a synthesis of punk and new wave groups. They had simplicity, elegance, style and magic. Unknown Pleasures was the last big and significant album that we listened to before we, directly inspired by it, finally decided to form Laibach.
